Around 20 passengers were left stranded in Poland last week after a Ryanair
plane took off half an hour ahead of schedule.

The flight, which was due to depart at 11.30am on Wednesday from Warsaw Chopin Airport, and was bound for Manchester, actually left at 11am by mistake.

The blunder was revealed on the Polish airport’s Twitter page, and has subsequently been confirmed by the no-frills airline.

A report in the Manchester Evening News said that those passengers left behind were assisted by airport and airline staff, who managed to find them seats on a later flight.

Ryanair usually flies from nearby Modlin airport at 11am, but due to maintainance work had been forced to switch to Chopin instead. However, the new airport was unable to give it the same time slot as Modlin, and flights were pushed back to 11.30am, prompting the error.

Stephen McNamara, head of communications at Ryanair, insisted that passengers had been told the correct boarding time.

He said: "Warsaw Airport (Chopin) is responsible for the accuracy of the information displayed on its customer service screens and it is each passenger’s personal responsibility to ensure they are at the departure gate before gate closure/final boarding, as per the times indicated on their boarding card.

"Over 140 passengers boarded this flight without issue and Ryanair assisted the small number of passengers who failed to show up at the departure gate on-time for their scheduled flight departure."